CHOICES - Cooperation between European EQUAL projects -...

CHOICES - Cooperation between European EQUAL projects - Results

The EQUAL Initiative (promoted by the

European Social Fund and implemented in and

between the Member States) is a laboratory for

new ideas to the European Employment

Strategy and the Social inclusion process. Its

mission is to promote a more inclusive work life

through fighting discrimination and inequali-

ties, specially those linked to sex, racial or eth-

nic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or

sexual orientation:

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/equ

al/index_en.cfm

The European Employment Directives 2003

are established on three main objectives: full

introduction

employment, quality and productivity at work and reinforce-

ment of cohesion and social inclusion.

Taking into account these main aims, the Transnational

Cooperation CHOICES was started, by a partnership having

similar target groups in their national activities: groups likely

to be excluded and segregated from the labour market.

The four national projects that integrate the Transnational

Cooperation CHOICES (CHANCES, Finland; GEG, Denmark,

GE.L.S.O, Italy and CONCÍLIATE BIERZO, Spain), based on their

common interests and similarities, agreed to plan several

joint activities in order to share their knowledge for the devel-

opment of methodologies that support the implementation

of new approaches related to the educational and occupa-

tional guidance and counselling, for the inclusion of the most

disadvantaged groups of the labour market.

For more information about the CHOICES project, visit the

Website:

http://ktl.jyu.fi/ktl/hankkeet/chances/choices

Next, the Transnational Activities carried out within theframework of the Transnational Cooperation CHOICES,during its two years of development, are briefly describedbelow:

EXCHANGE OF EXPERTISE

(Coordinating Partner: Finland)

In terms of

exchange of expertise, the CHOICES partners when having

their transnational meetings have invited external experts to

contribute with lessons on specific themes. The purpose of

these lectures has been to give a better insight into areas of

ongoing development in the education and employment

sectors in the participating countries. The expert presenta-

tions have highlighted the following issues:

• Spanish women in the society as well as Spanish women´s

position in a rural context.

• Developing career guidance services for young people

with special needs in Finland.

• Learning partnership in guidance and counselling

processes and gender.


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• Provision of guidance and counselling

services in network and multiprofessional

cooperation to support students at risk of

social exclusion.

• Multiprofessional cooperation to support

the integration of immigrants into work-

ing life.

• Non-discrimination and equal treatment.

• Gender mainstreaming and gender equality.

These themes have been extremely relevant

for the CHOICES cooperation and the lectures

have provided the CHOICES partners with

useful information.

WORLD CAFÉ - A METHOD

TO FRUITFUL DEBATE

(Coordinating Partner: Denmark)

The one-day seminar alias “World café” took

place at the University of Roskilde (Denmark)

28th August 2006.

The aim of this transnational workshop was to

exchange experience cross-country with a

spotlight on anti-discrimination.

The focus areas of the four project partners in

CHOICES are diverse. But we have one thing in

common – we want to develop new tools and

methods in order to promote inclusion and

combat discrimination in general. Gender and

ethnicity should not be seen as a burden but

as a resource.

That was why we invited Ms. Mandana

Zarrehparvar from The Danish Human Rights

Institute to give an introduction to the

Principle of Equal Treatment prior to the World

Café debate. The focal points of her speech

were:

• Where does the notion of equal treatment

come from?

• What do the principles of equal treat-

ment/non- discrimination mean?

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• Instruments to enhance equal treatment.

• Equal treatment bodies.

The four parallel working groups (two English and two

Spanish /Italian speaking) had a lively debate in two working

sessions. It became clear, that gender is a backdrop to other

discrimination factors being ethnicity, religion, disability, age

or sexual orientation.

The Spanish participants underlined the need for affirmative

actions in order to include women into the labour market

Italian colleagues pinpointed how gender is constantly rede-

fined and negotiated in the everyday practices at the work-

place and Finland and Denmark advocated for multicultural

and gender-sensitive guidance as a tool to include minority

boys and girls in the youth education system.

More that 30 persons took part in the World Café and the

impression was, that everybody learnt a lot while listening to

each other and participating in the discussions in the rotating

tables chaired by transnational steering groups members.

RESEARCH ON MINORITY YOUTH

AND OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION

(Coordinating Partner: Italy)

One of the first common activities

undertaken within the CHOICES

transnational cooperation has been

the joint research project.

At the beginning the main aim was to analyse, with a gender

approach:

a) the occupational conditions of ethnic minority young

people and the factors of occupational segregation they

may face,

b) the role that multicultural counselling plays, for young

immigrants, in the transition between school and work.

Seeing the heterogeneity of issues faced by different national

projects and the consequent difficulty to develop a common

framework for gathering data, the content of the project was

altered through the working process.

The result has been a joint publication, coordinated by the

Italian partner, on the results of the research activities con-


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ducted by Finnish and Danish partners on

gender issues in counselling and guidance

practices with minority youth.

The publication consists of two articles: the

first one is based on interviews with young

Russian girls living in Finland, the second one

focuses on various aspects of the educational

choices of ethnic minority youth in Denmark

and has been drawn up on the basis of eight

group interviews with minority young.

WEBSITE


The CHOICES website is available at:


from where all interested users can obtain ge-

neral information about the CHOICES coopera-

tion and the partner organisations as well as

jointly produced materials and publications.

Also the internal evaluation process within

the CHOICES partnership and documentation

from CHOICES steering group meetings can

be located there.

Additionally some other information materials

and handbooks on themes relevant for the

CHOICES collaboration have been uploaded

on the website.

All information and all materials collected to

the website are available only in English,

which is the official language of the CHOICES

partnership.4.

NEWSLETTERS

(Coordinating Partner: Spain)

The common aim of the two

Newsletters devised within the

framework of the project, is the

involvement of the local agents and

the awareness raising on the labour

discrimination issues, through the dissemination of the activi-

ties carried out and of the results obtained. Thus, the target

group of this action, besides the CHOICES partners themselves

and the target groups of each national project,are several types

of local agents: trade unions, associations of disadvantaged col-

lectives, equal opportunities agencies, etc.

Both newsletters have been edited in Spanish and English.

Their distribution has been carried out in printed format,

through the different partners, and in pdf format, through the

Website of the CHOICES project.

Newsletter I

• The first newsletter is composed by an introduction on the

Transnacional Cooperation, the target groups to which the

different actions are addressed, the main objectives of the

cooperation and the foreseen results.

• Then, a brief presentation of the CHOICES partnership is

included.

• The main activities of the national projects of the partner-

ship members are described.

• And finally, the newsletter includes different interesting

events, related to the topics addressed by the transnatio-

nal project CHOICES.

Newsletter II

• The second newsletter (the present one) consists of a brief

introduction regarding the Equal Initiative, its main aims

and the beginning of the Transnational Cooperation

CHOICES, according to these.

• Then, a description of every activity carried out during the

transnational cooperation is included, indicating in each

case: the objectives of the activity, the target group to

which it is addressed, the results obtained and the format

in which these results are available.


5.

GOOD PRACTICE BOOKLET ON

“CULTURE AND GENDER SENSITIVE

GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING”


The Good Practice Booklet on “Culture and

gender sensitive guidance and coun-

selling” aims at compiling case descriptions

of activities in the area of culture- and gender-

sensitive counselling in the four participating

countries (Denmark, Finland, Italy, Spain).

Altogether there are 12 good practices pre-

sented in the booklet. These practices cover

training programmes, handbooks, guides, pu-

blications, databases, websites and projects.

In addition to the concrete good practice

descriptions, the introduction chapter of the

booklet approaches the themes culture and

gender as well as counselling in relation to

gender and ethnicity from a general perspec-

tive, yet in an integrated manner. This way the

reader will be given valuable orientation into

these topics and s/he will become better

acquainted with the core concepts as well as

contexts in which culture and gender usually

are being discussed.

The booklet, available in English in printed for-

mat and as a pdf-document, will be available

in May 2007.

GOOD PRACTICE BOOKLET ON

“GENDER MAINSTREAMING”

(Coordinating Partner: Italy)

The main aim of the

Good Practice

Booklet on

“Gender mainstreaming”

(that collect good practices from Finland,

Spain, Denmark and Italy) it is the diffusion

and the implementation of actions that have

produced change in the culture, in the

6.

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behaviours and in the social organization, in order to

remove disparity and discriminations founded on gender

stereotypes.

The good practices have been grouped together by consider-

ing three different areas of implementation:

• Ministerial and/or national level policies: the applica-

tion of gender mainstreaming in national policies, in pro-

grammes, and in general projects, is a complex under-

taking which concerns every phase in a policy’s develop-

ment: its conception, implementation, assessment, and

revision. Cooperation with bodies and/or committees in

promoting equal opportunities is vital if projects and

initiatives are to implement a gender approach.

• Projects in the field of education and training: the

inclusion of gender mainstreaming in training schemes,

and the identification of good practices to develop a gen-

der culture in schools and the associated institutions, are

indispensable if the obstacles against equal opportunities

are to be removed, and if equal participation by women

and men in education, training and the labour market is

to be achieved.

• Positive actions in the labour market: the purpose of such

actions is to encourage gender mainstreaming and to

improve the quality of life and the work/life balance. The

purpose of implementing innovative ideas on achieving a

gender balance in labour market participation is to facilita-

te career development, to reduce vertical and horizontal

gender segregation, and to introduce new forms of flexibi-

lity that enhance the work/life balance for women and men.

FINAL SEMINAR

(Coordinating Partner: Spain)

In order to accomplish

all the participants´ interest,

the Final Seminar, the international

and bilingual (English–Spanish) closure activity in the scope

of the Transnational Cooperation CHOICES, was structured in

four different sections:

1. Organisation of Study Visits so that both partners and

experts of the different countries can know in situ the main

actions of the Spanish national project.


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2. Organisation of Oral Presentations by

the coordinators of the different transna-

tional activities, to inform the experts of the

different countries about the activities

carried out within the framework of the

CHOICES Cooperation.

3. Organisation of Discussion Groups or

Workshops, so that both partners and

experts, can exchange opinions regarding

the main topics related to the project

CHOICES. The topics selected for the three

workshops will be:

• The double discrimination of women.

• Education and employment as a way

for the social and personal develop-

ment of the immigrant men and

women.

• The management of immigration in

the different countries.

4. Posters Exhibition and Information

Point. The topic of the exposition has

been based on the national and transna-

tional activities developed by the different

partners. The exhibition has been divided

in three different sections:

• National DPs Area: There will be an

informative poster for each national

project of the partners involved in the

CHOICES Cooperation.

• CHOICES project Area: There will be an

informative poster for each activity

developed within the framework of

the CHOICES Cooperation.

• Information point: Where the Website

of the project will be available to be

visited and where the visitants will be

able to consult brochures and other

publicity information on the different

activities related to the project.

INTERNAL EVALUATION

(Coordinating Partner: Denmark)

The internal evaluation

of CHOICES has been

carried out by the

Danish Steering Group member Ms. Sine Lehn.

The CHOICES cooperation has been a cooperation of ambi-

tion and inspiration. From the very beginning there has been

a collectively shared vision to accomplish some real results.

There has been a clearly formulated intention that the com-

mon sharing of experiences was to result in activities and dis-

semination processes reaching further than to the Steering

Group members. This ambition has been meet in a convin-

cingly manner.

The ambitions have also been high in terms of the thematic

contents of the project. CHOICES sat out not only to cover

gender, ethnicity, horizontal and vertical segregation, exclu-

sion and inclusion in the same project, they also intended to

explore how these different themes and aspects of exclusion

influence and shape one another.

CHOICES have worked with these themes and questions by

applying a large number of different approaches all building

on the assumptions that different member states and differ-

ent fields of expertise have valuable knowledge and experi-

ence that can help us solve the problems of exclusion and

marginalization.

The results of the CHOICES cooperation are many.

Seen from the perspective of the evaluator the work has left

traces in the projects carried out on the national level. Many

people have been involved in concrete activities and many

more will have the opportunity to benefit from the high qua-

lity products of the project.

CHOICES has not solved the problem of exclusion and mar-

ginalization, but it is true to say that we have gotten a little bit

closer to some of the answers needed in order to do so.

The report will be published on the CHOICES website in

April 2007.



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